A little over a year ago, we adopted a pure bred collie who was 5 years old at that time, named Sage. We adopted her from a Collie Rescue after fostering her for a couple of weeks. She seemed like a pretty good dog, she didn’t have any accidents in the house or chew things, which was nice.
But, as it turns out, chewing is not the worst problem a dog can have
She hasn’t bonded with anyone here. She is totally indifferent to us – she has NO affection or connection at all to me or any of the kids or anyone else. When the kids pet her, she just stands there *tolerating* it and looking very upset that they are bugging her. When they try to talk to her or play with her, she ignores them pointedly.
She is, however, the most annoying dog in the UNIVERSE when we have guests over – she HAS to be crated or put outside because she will jump and claw on visitors non-stop – ANYONE who comes in the door. And I can’t seem to break her from it [and I’m a pretty good dog trainer, believe it or not]. It is really obsessive/neurotic behavior.
This stupid collie is also a “door bolter” – she runs away any time a door opens [will knock me down to push me out of her way, and totally trample the children]. I *hate* this – she refuses to come to us when we try to go get her and instead runs the neighborhood JUMPING on people. Jumping on people is one of her signature bad habits. We live in a *very* sweet neighborhood with a lot of elderly retired people who walk the neighborhood a lot. And I am SO scared she is going to jump on one of them and really hurt them.
So, at this point, she stays in the back yard all day and only comes in at night, when the children are in bed and I know the front door is not going to be opened. She was purchased as an inside dog, and an inside dog is what I wanted – but she is *impossible* to keep in the house during the day because of her running away habit.
As it is, she does anything she can to escape from the back yard too. *sigh* I am sick of my pregnant self having to chase this dog down the street – leaving my children unattended while I run around the whole neighborhood trying to catch this stupid dog before she kills one of my neighbors or gets picked up by animal control. I am also worried one of my children is going to be hit by a car and killed because they ALWAYS try to chase her themselves, even after I’ve told them time and again they are not allowed to do it. They panic and think she’ll be gone forever if they don’t run after her [if only… *sigh*]
In addition, the dog just has a nasty attitude. I had read that collies are “stubborn” and boy, they weren’t kidding. I do obedience training with both of our dogs and she KNOWS all the commands, she just doesn’t want to do what she is told.
For instance, I say “Down” and she will stare at me balefully and then finally, excruciatingly slowly, she will lower herself down and then glare at me the whole time. [Meanwhile our other dog hits the floor immediately – what a good boy!].
She is also deathly afraid of thunder and lightening and acts like a total neurotic nutcase whenever there is a storm around – no matter how much you pet her or comfort her, she’s going insane. It drives ME insane.
Oh, and then she decided she’d start waking me up several times a night… just because. Now we leave the baby gate up at the bottom of the stairs so she can’t come upstairs.
She likes to deliberately lie in doorways and other very conspicuous places where you can’t get by and she refuses to move when you tell her to – you are forced to either walk over her [which is difficult since she’s a big dog] or try to get around her… it makes me nuts.
And then there is the fact that she’s SNEAKY. I hate a sneaky person and I hate a sneaky animal. She is *very* intelligent. She *knows* what the rules are. She just waits till I’m not around to *catch* her and THEN she breaks the rules. For instance, tearing all the trash out and scattering it all over the house – she will ONLY do this after we are all asleep – all day long she could be sitting 2 inches from that trash can and won’t touch it – but the second the rotten thing is ALONE, she tears it up and scatters it.
I can handle a dog that just doesn’t *know* any better, and I can understand a dog who is just kinda stupid… I’ve had both kinds. But I *despise* this dog who is perfectly intelligent and *knows* what she should and shouldn’t do, and just chooses to be a sneaky brat with a bad attitude.
Ugh.
I wish we’d never adopted this awful dog. All she does is lie around. She doesn’t *like* any of us – she could care less if we were murdered 3 feet in front of her face. She is really, truly just a waste of dog food.
Now, on the other hand, we have our lab/husky mix – the boy dog, Tyr. We adopted him last August and he was 2 years old at that time. He had *serious* problems when we got him – chewing, pooping and peeing in the house, jumping up… you name it, he had it.
Within 6 weeks I had him trained and he has never had a potty accident since, he has stopped chewing obsessively [with just a couple of mishaps over the last 8 months], he doesn’t jump – he is EXCELLENT with his obedience commands.
He *adores* our whole family and follows the kids around constantly – he just loves them to pieces. If you tell him not to do something, he doesn’t do it [whether you are looking or not]. If he does something wrong [like kill a chicken] it is only because he didn’t *understand* that it was wrong – he can be taught and once he is taught he does not make the same mistake twice. He has a GREAT attitude, he is protective of his family but not mean, he WANTS to be a good boy – you can’t beat a dog like that.
I adore him. I’m so glad we adopted him.
He still has problems – he will run away [the collie taught him how] and he will try to escape. I get frustrated by that, and because of that he, too, spends most of the daytime hours in the back yard where no door gets opened. But that is about his only issue, and I can live with that because he is such a lovable dog otherwise.
But that Collie … ugh. I rue the day we adopted that useless beast!
